Imperfect Heroes: Tristan Vazante

Today's imperfect hero is Tristan Vazante, brought to you by the author of Artemis Rising, Cheri Lasota -

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When my dear friend Gemi asked me to post about my “imperfect hero” Tristan Vazante, I thought: What a brilliant idea! We adore our fictional heroes as we read them and write them and daydream about them. Yet, oftentimes, we gloss over their imperfections and impatiently await the story’s happy ending—something we wish for ourselves vicariously through our characters. So much of how stories affect us comes down to reader expectation. Most genre fiction “requires” a happy ending (even series books) despite the sufferings and betrayals we put our characters through. But if we only wrote perfect characters, where would the story be?

We all go through experiences of deep betrayal and hurt in our lives, usually at the hand of those we love most. And much of what draws us to fiction is the ability to see how others deal with the problems we have had. How do they survive pain, cruelty and abuse and come out stronger than ever? Just as our dreams let our subconscious work out problem-solving situations, I attest that fiction does the same thing in our waking hours, albeit with a little more sense!

Fiction may be fantasy, but it often explores the most raw and universal truths about the dark side of humanity. When we read, we work on these societal problems within the context and safety of a world that does not exist. This helps us to process situations we may not be able to face otherwise. Besides entertainment, fiction has had the power to move us to action within our own lives. It empowers, enlightens and reveals. The pen truly is mightier than the sword!

My young Azorean Islander Tristan Vazante is an amalgam of many different people: the Knight Tristan of Cornwall (Arthurian legend), the Greek God Alpheus (to add a bit more of a dark side), pieces of several different beloved characters from other novels and films, and even parts of men I’ve known throughout my life. Most importantly, I needed to make sure that his personality and beliefs matched the time period and location in which he lived (1880s Azores Islands): deeply religious, kind and welcoming, salt of the earth.

That’s quite a patchwork quilt of a character, eh? This was all quite purposeful, because I knew my tendency was to protect him from harm, as he was my favorite character in the book. When I create any character, there are a few specific characteristics I give all of them before I can really get a sense of who they are. Here were Tristan’s:

• Greatest strength: self-sacrifice
• Greatest need/desire: the heroine, Arethusa, of course! =)
• Childhood trauma: loss of mother
• Deepest secret: his origins
• Fatal flaw: lack of loyalty

Tristan’s traits needed to both compliment and contrast with my heroine’s characteristics, so the characters could attract and repel each other at different points in the story. Early on in drafting Artemis Rising, Tristan’s main flaw was that he had no flaw. So I worked hard at creating a more complex background and personality for him.

In the end, his fatal flaw—lack of loyalty—tested the characters’ love right down to its foundations. The scene in which it is most forcefully illustrated appears to touch my readers deeply. Could this be perhaps because they recognize and remember such pain in their own lives? Certainly that scene fulfills that purpose for me. I remember, too, how difficult that scene was to write. It brought me to tears that day and it still does when I re-read it. And for some readers it does the same. There is a catharsis in seeing our own experiences laid bare in the life of another, fictional or otherwise. It helps us make sense of the madness and frailty of human nature and accept it for what it is.

Later on Tristan’s loyalty is tested once again. And this brings me to an important point. Writers seem to know inherently that if a character fails his first test, he’ll need to be tested again. The second time, a hero has to learn from his previous mistake. Or if he doesn’t, he becomes more of an anti-hero.

The beauty in Tristan for me is that he is always a hero, despite his imperfections. He has a moment of weakness—and it’s big one—but it doesn’t destroy his honor permanently. For me, he represents the epitome of hope: despite our flaws we can still be redeemed. This is such an important message for me personally. He reminds me of this every time I think about him. And isn’t that a mark of a good character? You remember him long after the book ends. Here’s hoping he nestles in your heart as much as he did mine. *sigh*

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Cheri's Website

Artemis Rising on:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes and Noble
SpireHouse Books


Thanks so much for sharing about Tristan, Cheri!

Happy reading,
Gemi

E-book Giveaway: Featured Author Shayne Parkinson

This week's featured historical e-author is Shayne Parkinson. Shayne was born in New Zealand, and apart from two years in England she has lived there all her life. At university, she majored in English Literature. She is married to her childhood sweetheart, who grew up in the farming valley that's the inspiration for the imaginary one where her books are set. They have a few acres in the countryside, where they have an orchard and a large vegetable garden, and a small flock of sheep to keep the grass down.

Shayne's book Sentence of Marriage is currently free on Smashwords and Amazon, but she has also offered to provide Smashwords coupons for the three remaining e-books in the series to one lucky winner! If you'd like to be entered to win, just leave a comment. Entries close at midnight Eastern time on Thursday, April 26th.

"The story was captivating, the characters real, the dialogue crisp. I admit to having cried and laughed and even having wanted to murder a character and beat another one within an inch of his life — which is simply a testament to how well written these books are." - AmericanEditor.

I asked Shayne to share with us why she writes and what inspired her to write about New Zealand.

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"I'm fascinated by social history, particularly that of my own country. The late Victorian era saw significant social change in New Zealand, particularly for women. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1884 allowed married women to own property in their own right. Changes to divorce law meant that women could file for divorce on the same grounds as men. In 1893 New Zealand women gained the vote, the first in the world to do so. The attitude where a woman was seen as the property of first her father, later her husband, with only the most minimal of rights to her own person, was being undermined.



I’d never intended to write a sequel, let alone a series, but when I finished the three books that make up "Promises to Keep" I found that I missed the characters too much to leave them behind! That meant following them further into the early 20th century. So I wrote a sequel, and am still writing about these people. My current work-in-progress covers the years of the Great War. Finding out what it might have been like for those left at home during the war to try and cope when sons, husbands and brothers were taken from them is proving just as fascinating to me as the earlier periods were.



More background to the books' setting may be found on my website: http://sites.google.com/site/shayneparkinson/ "

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About Sentence of Marriage:

In 19th Century New Zealand, there are few choices for a farm girl like Amy. Her life seems mapped out for her by the time she is twelve. Amy dreams of an exciting life in the world beyond her narrow boundaries. But it is the two people who come to the farm from outside the valley who change her life forever, and Amy learns the high cost of making the wrong choice. Book 1 of "Promises to Keep".

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To find out more about Shayne Parkinson and her books, visit the following pages:

Shayne Parkinson's website
Shayne Parkinson's Blog - Notes from New Zealand
Her Amazon author page
Her Barnes and Noble page
Her Smashwords page
The book trailer for Sentence of Marriage on YouTube

(BTW, Shayne's books have been downloaded from Smashwords an amazing 30,000 times!)

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My thanks to Shayne Parkinson for sharing - and to past interviewees Lisa J. Yarde (Sultana), Sarah Woodbury (Cold My Heart) and Anna Elliott (Georgiana Darcy's Diary). I hope to host more emerging and established e-authors in the future, so readers out there can find new voices and stories to immerse themselves in.

Happy reading,
Gemi

Featured Author: Anna Elliott

This week's featured historical fiction e-author on MDAMM is Anna Elliott. The author of Georgiana Darcy's Diary, as well as the Twilight of Avalon trilogy, published by Simon & Schuster (Touchstone), she lives in the Washington DC Metro area with her husband and two daughters.

Anna has generously offered to giveaway 2 free Kindle copies of her newest novel, Georgiana Darcy's Diary! To enter to win, simply leave a comment below. Entries close at midnight, U.S. Eastern time, on Thursday, May 19th. The winners will be announced Friday.

"Fans of Jane Austen will relish this captivating story. I loved the echoes of Austen's wit, the well-crafted drawing-room intrigues, and the engaging romance. Elliott's heroine is unique and believable, but totally true to Austen's original character. A delightful read!" -- Jules Watson, Author of The Raven Queen


I asked Anna to tell us more about why she writes and what inspired her to continue the story that Jane Austen began.

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"I've read Pride and Prejudice many, many times, and seen the various movie adaptations more times than I can even begin to count. (Colin Firth is my favorite Mr. Darcy!). I love Elizabeth and Darcy's love story, of course--it's a testament to Jane Austen's genius that it truly stands the test of time. Watching Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth fall in love, seeing the two of them overcome their initial first impressions of one another is as compelling now as it did 200 years ago. Maybe because that kind of love story truly is timeless. Isn't that the eternal magic of romance, that we're able to discover new facets of those we love--and that love has the power to transform us and our lives.

I could read Pride and Prejudice again and again, and be caught up in Elizabeth and Darcy's story every time. And yet, strangely, it's always been Georgiana Darcy, Mr. Darcy's younger sister's character, that stays with me the longest, each time I read the book or watch one of the films.

Georgiana's character is almost a plot device in the book--proof of Wickham's villainy, since he tried to seduce her when she was only fifteen. She's described as 'exceedingly shy' and we never actually hear her speak a single line; any dialogue she has is summarized by the narrator. And yet I've always wanted to know more about her--how did she really feel about George Wickham? What was it like growing up as Mr. Darcy's younger sister? And most important of all, I couldn't stop myself from imagining what might have happened to her after the close of Pride and Prejudice. Did she ever find her own happily-ever-after?

Georgiana Darcy's Diary was born out of all my wondering. I chose a diary format to tell Georgiana's story, first because I'd never written a diary form novel before, and wanted to challenge myself to master the form. But mostly that was just how I heard Georgiana's voice in my head: a shy girl, pouring herself onto the pages of the private journal that---at the beginning of the story, at least-- serves as her only real confidant.

I absolutely loved writing Georgiana Darcy's Diary, and I hope fellow Jane Austen lovers will enjoy spending a little more time in the Pride and Prejudice world."

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About Georgiana Darcy's Diary:

Mr. Darcy's younger sister searches for her own happily-ever-after...

The year is 1814, and it's springtime at Pemberley. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have married. But now a new romance is in the air, along with high fashion, elegant manners, scandal, deception, and the wonderful hope of a true and lasting love.

Shy Georgiana Darcy has been content to remain unmarried, living with her brother and his new bride. But Elizabeth and Darcy's fairy-tale love reminds Georgiana daily that she has found no true love of her own. And perhaps never will, for she is convinced the one man she secretly cares for will never love her in return. Georgiana's domineering aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, has determined that Georgiana shall marry, and has a list of eligible bachelors in mind. But which of the suitors are sincere, and which are merely interested in Georgiana's fortune? Georgiana must learn to trust her heart--and rely on her courage, for she also faces the return of the man who could ruin her reputation and spoil a happy ending, just when it finally lies within her grasp.

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In addition to Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Anna Elliott is the author of a trilogy of Trystan and Isolde, published by Touchstone: Twilight of Avalon, Dark Moon of Avalon and Sunrise of Avalon (coming in 2011), as well as two shorts stories available as e-books: Dawn of Avalon (currently FREE) and The Witch Queen's Secret (only 99 cents).

For more information on where to find Anna's books, check her website, her Amazon.com author page or her Smashwords author page.

Many, many thanks to Anna Elliott! Next week I'll feature Shayne Parkinson, author of historical sagas set in 19th century New Zealand.

Happy reading,
Gemi

Book Giveaway - Featured Historical Fiction E-Author: Lisa J. Yarde

I'm pleased to announce that during May I am featuring an exciting line-up of authors of historical fiction e-books. Although many of these books are available as paperbacks, all are out in various e-book forms. It's a great mix of time periods and sub-genres. Let me start by introducing this week's Featured Author here on My Dog Ate My Manuscript: Lisa J. Yarde.

Lisa has generously offered to provide a copy of Sultana (your choice of e-book or paperback) to one random commenter. If you'd like to be entered to win, just leave a comment and a way for me to contact you, in case you win! Entries close midnight Eastern time, May 5th.

I asked Lisa to share with us why she writes and why she chose the time period, setting and characters that she did.

"During my college years, I was fascinated to learn that there had been an Islamic presence in Europe. For seven hundred years, a diverse people known as Moors had ruled what would become one of the most influential Catholic nations. The thirteenth century in Spain was a brutal and turbulent era, as most of the medieval period, but it was also the flowering of an age of artistic, intellectual and architectural brilliance in Spain. Fatima and Faraj played pivotal roles in the history of that period, as did their descendants for another two centuries. I am truly fortunate that the primary setting of their story, the Alhambra Palace in the southern Spanish city of Granada still exists and is open of visitors. I hope readers will share my fascination with the Alhambra, the Moorish period, and Fatima and Faraj’s lives."

I'm 3/4 of the way through reading Sultana and am awed by the wealth of detail included about Moorish life: the architecture, the clothing, the food, the customs. Like me, I'm sure other readers will be drawn in by not only the uniquely exotic setting, but also by the vivid battle scenes, political intrigue, and poignant love story between Fatima and Faraj. Here is some more information about the story, its trailer and links on where to sample and purchase it -

About Sultana:

"Sultana is a story of revenge and intrigue, the bonds of family and the redemptive power of love. The story takes place during a turbulent period in thirteenth century Moorish Spain, when the union of a child bride and her groom, precipitates a civil war. Fatima is the young granddaughter of the reigning Sultan of Granada and Faraj is his nephew. Although the couple is part of the same renowned family, each has separate, sometimes contrary interests. Fatima is utterly devoted to her family while Faraj, who is ten years older than her, has one cause in mind – to regain a heritage lost at the brutal death of his father. The union between Faraj and Fatima has endangered both their lives. It has turned the Sultan’s one-time allies into powerful enemies. In addition, the Christian kings of Castile and North African Muslim rulers have their own designs on Granada. Fatima and Faraj have to overcome their initial mistrust and misunderstandings of each other. If they do not unite in the struggle against their common enemies, Granada will fall."

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Click here to view the book trailer for Sultana.

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Sultana is available in the following formats and locations:

Amazon.com (Kindle and paperback)
Amazon.co.uk (Kindle and paperback)
Barnes and Noble (Nook and paperback)
Smashwords (various e-book formats)

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Lisa Yarde is the author of On Falcon's Wings and Sultana. She is passionate about history and writing. Her love of the past inspires her to write historical fiction. Her favorite period is medieval, an interest that started when she wrote about knights and castles as a young teen. She currently lives in New York. You can find more information about Lisa and her writing on the website www.lisayarde.com.

Thanks, Lisa! Next week's feature will be on Sarah Woodbury, author of Arthurian historical fantasy and Welsh medieval time travel stories. Coming up later in the month - Anna Elliott and Shayne Parkinson.

Happy reading,
Gemi

Interview with Paul Reid, author of A Cruel Harvest

Last year in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, I sifted through many of my fellow Quarterfinalists' entries and commented on a dozen or so that caught my attention. My favorite was a historical fiction called A Cruel Harvest by Paul Reid. I was sadly disappointed to only be able to read the first 10,000 words.

So I was elated when Paul later posted more of his story on Authonomy. It didn't take me long to ask to read the whole thing, which he graciously allowed me to do. It was only a few months after the end of the ABNA contest that Paul was contacted by AmazonEncore, the new publishing division of Amazon.com, whose objective is "to identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors". They wanted to publish his book! Paul's and three others had been plucked from the ranks of the ABNA entries. AmazonEncore has since also added several other titles to their lists (some of which were previously self-published).

Without further ado, here's the interview I did with Paul which first appeared over at the Historical Novel Review Blog:

• How long have you been writing and what made you want to write historical fiction?

I enjoyed crafting stories from a young age. Even before I could write I would sketch out stories by drawing pictures. This developed as I got older. I remember going through a period in my teens when I was fascinated by westerns – there’s probably over a dozen unfinished cowboy stories lying around somewhere in my parents’ house. I had always enjoyed historical stories in particular, and I studied history in college. A love of history and storytelling eventually culminated in the publication of a novel.

• What was your inspiration for this particular book?

Some years back I was in the village of Baltimore on the south coast of Ireland, and I came across a pub called the Algiers Inn. When I inquired about the unusual name, I discovered a real-life incident in 1631 where over a hundred local people had been seized from the village and taken to Algeria to be sold as slaves. I was amazed that this had happened in an area so close to where I live, so I did further research and learned of many such episodes where Irish and British people had been taken as slaves for the North African market. It wasn’t an area hugely touched on by historians, and I certainly had never learned about it in school. My interest quickly led to a plot forming itself in my head, which eventually became ‘A Cruel Harvest’.

• What do you hope that readers will carry away from this story?

I hope they will enjoy the adventures, the human dramas, the big landscapes. I would like to think that the reader may find incidents, characters, states of mind, etc, that they can relate to. I think this is true of the Moroccan and Irish characters, as they are similar to each other in many ways. I’ve long believed that, while societies differ hugely, people are pretty much the same everywhere you go. This story hopefully shows that. I also hope it will renew a sense of faith in the resilience of the human spirit.

• Every author has a unique path to publication. Can you tell us a little about yours?

My route to publication wasn’t entirely typical. I tried many times to get an agent to represent ‘A Cruel Harvest’ but I had no luck. In 2009 I entered it into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, admittedly on a last-minute whim. It made the semi-finals in that competition, and some months later an editor from AmazonEncore got in touch with me to discuss the book. This ultimately led to a publishing contract with AmazonEncore in the USA. It has since also been bought by Random House for publication in Germany. All very unexpected in the end, really. I still don’t have an agent!

• What other books have you written? What is your current work in progress?

‘A Cruel Harvest’ is my first published novel. I have others awaiting completion, though I keep warning myself that I need to focus on one only, otherwise none of them will get finished! I’ve been working of late on a story set around the conflict between the British and French in the Ohio River Valley during the 18th century, but before that I am hoping to finish a novel set in Dublin and London during the Anglo/Irish War 1919-1921.

• What authors were your early inspiration and who are some of your favorite current books or authors?

I will read pretty much anything, though I do enjoy historical fiction in particular. Authors whom I read a lot of include Bernard Cornwell, Robert Harris, Wilbur Smith, Joseph O’Connor, Sebastian Faulks. I also love a good detective story, especially anything by Ian Rankin. ‘The Year of the French’ by Thomas Flanagan would rank as my number one favourite novel of all. He’s an American writer but the story is set in Ireland, around the attempted French invasion of 1798. It is, in a word, extraordinary.

• What has been the biggest stumbling block in your writing? Can you share some advice

which may help others get past similar problems?

I guess my biggest problem has always been trying to stick to a routine. Usually once I sit at the desk, the ideas start to flow. The problem is getting to the desk in the first place! It used to be that I would write whenever I had some free time, but that doesn’t really work, not for me anyway, as I would nearly always get distracted by something else. So I try to stick to a rigid routine of writing now, certain days, certain times of the day for certain periods, etc. Writing a book requires discipline, after all. It’s not something I’ve ever had in abundance, but I’m working on it!

• Where can readers find more information about you and your books?

They can find some information about both myself and ‘A Cruel Harvest’ on Amazon.com. I hope to add to the information there over time, and also to develop my own website which will have a lot more incorporated.

• What would you like our readers to know about you and your writing?

I am a reader before I am a writer. I love books, love losing myself into a good story. I also come from a people with a long history of spinning tales and yarns of all kinds, and indeed Ireland has produced a rich literary culture over the centuries and many famous writers. I’m just trying to make my own small contribution to this!

Thanks, Paul! You can find my review of A Cruel Harvest here.

Until later,

Gemi

Interview with Peter Johnson

I’m pleased to introduce Peter Johnson, the author of Grant’s Indian. After reading the book, I corresponded with Peter and learned that he had an interesting story of his own to tell about his path to authorship and what the publication of Grant’s Indian has meant to him. I would like to share our discussion with all our blog readers as part of this week’s Featured Author spotlight:

• How did you become interested in Ely Parker and what inspired you to write the book Grant’s Indian about him?

I probably first heard of Parker when reading about the Civil War as a kid. We had lots of Civil War books in the house, Grant's Memoirs among them, and Parker appears in several of them. But he's usually a footnote or an afterthought. Once I started writing novels, he became a natural character for me to focus on. The idea was to tell the story of the Civil War through the eyes of an outsider - in this case an American Indian. But he soon became the main character. There are a number of unanswered questions in his biography that only a novel can wrestle with, including (especially) how an 18-year-old Washington society belle came to marry a middle-aged Indian and (even more especially) how and why the Indian missed his own high-society wedding. My speculations about these questions are the emotional heart of the novel.

• How long have you been writing and what made you want to write historical fiction?

I started writing novels as a sort of dare to myself in the early 1980s, when I was (as I still am) a professional actor spending a lot of time in regional theater, which lends itself to a lot of time on one's hands. I wrote a couple of mysteries that weren't terribly mysterious, a political thriller that failed to thrill, a baseball novel that whiffed and a coming-of-age novel that was identical to all other coming-of-age novels. For most of these I got agents but no publishers. Further, by the time they got into publishers' hands, they were dated -- actual world events made them no longer timely. I decided to write historical fiction because events in the distant past are unlikely to go out of date. A novel about the Civil War is as publishable (or not) today as it will be ten years from now, so it doesn't matter when a historical novel reaches a publisher. Timeliness & relevance are irrelevant.

• Every author has a unique path to publication. Can you tell us a little about yours?

Sure. I got an agent for an earlier version of Grant's Indian some years ago, then more or less forgot about it while I did other things, like practicing law full-time. (I got my law degree at age 50 & passed the bar the day my first grandchild was born.) When I quit my law firm in 2003 I revisited the book and decided it was only half a book (It began and ended with the Civil War). So I finished it, shopped it around to agents and was encouraged by one agent to write another novel, which I did & which she now is shopping to publishers. Meanwhile the opportunity arose to publish an audiobook version of Grant's Indian. I've narrated audiobooks for 25 years, and a studio I was working at offered to produce it. So I narrated the audiobook and got it published by Audible.com, the download-only audio publisher. Then, since Audible.com is owned by Amazon, I took advantage of Amazon's print-on-demand feature to publish a print edition as well. So the audiobook has an actual publisher, while the print edition is self-published. Neat, eh? I could have waited a bit & got a legit publisher for the print book, but I wanted to get it in print for my father's 90th birthday in the fall of 2009, since he features prominently in the Writer's Note at the end and is responsible for my interest in the Civil War (his grandfather fought for the North & his father collected the Civil War books I now have custody of). I'm glad I did so. Dad died suddenly in February 2010. He kept a list of the books he read over the last 20 years (about 50 annually) and Grant's Indian was one of the last. (Though I don't think it killed him.)

• What other books have you written? What is your current work in progress?

As I indicated above, a bunch of unpublishable genre fiction, all quite witty, but dated. I have a historical novel circulating among publishers. It's about a 19th-century actor who is also an amateur sleuth, embroiled in foiling his fellow actor John Booth's plot against Lincoln. (He fails.)

• What makes this a book that people must read and why?

It will keep people entertained and off the streets for a few hours. Actually, I'd prefer that people listen to the audiobook, which allows them to read and be ON the streets at the same time. The audiobook is 16 hours, good for a number of long walks.

• What authors were your early inspiration and who are some of your favorite current books or authors?

The direct inspirations for Grant's Indian are (1) George McDonald Fraser, whose series of Flashman novels puts a historical nobody at the center of all the important events of the 19th century and (2) the Nero Wolfe mystery novels of Rex Stout, in which the legman Archie Goodwin recounts the sleuthing of genius detective Nero Wolfe. I think of Parker as Archie to Grant's Nero Wolfe. My favorite current authors are mostly mystery and thriller authors: Robert Parker, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Reginald Hill, P.D. James. They remind me that a plot, like a shark, has to keep moving or it dies. Since I teach law school, I also read a lot of Supreme Court and other legal opinions. Justice Stevens writes well & is usually right. Scalia writes brilliantly & is often wrong. I look forward to Justice Sotomayor's future opinions. I had a copyright case before her as a District Judge & her opinion was very imaginative. The best legal writing is good practice for fiction, because the writers have to organize factual material quickly & efficiently into a coherent & persuasive narrative. Justices Holmes and Cardozo will likely make appearances in my next couple of books, so I'm reading them as well. Cardozo likes inverted sentences ("Murder let us call it then, for murder surely it was."). Holmes likes to shock ("Three generations of imbeciles are enough.")

• What has been the biggest stumbling block in your writing? Can you share some advice which may help others get past similar problems?

The biggest stumbling block is that nobody much cares whether I write something or not. The way to get past it is to realize that, if I don't write the story that's in my head, nobody else will. Also, my head will explode.

• Where can readers find more information about you and your books?

http://www.peterjohnsonbooks.com/

• What would you like our readers to know about you and your writing?

I'm not important. The books are. There is another historical novel out there looking for a publisher and two more in early draft form.


Many, many thanks for sharing a little about yourself and your book, Peter. It was a pleasure for me to read Grant’s Indian. I gained a whole new appreciation for the era during which the U.S. expanded so rapidly and underwent so many changes. I’m looking forward to your next book!