Patricia Stoltey

Author

More on The Desert Hedge Murders

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Yay! My advance reading copies of The Desert Hedge Murders, the second Sylvia and Willie mystery, arrived yesterday. Today I’ll begin proofreading the book again. It’s unlikely I’ll find any mistakes, but it happens from time to time. I know of authors who found perfection in the advance review copy only to find upside down pages, or blank pages in the final book released to bookstores. Things happen.

Five Star sent more than twenty reading copies to the most prominent reviewers in the country. Since I didn’t receive a review from any of the big four (Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly) the first time around, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we see at least one this time (hopefully a good one).

I’ll send my reading copies to potential local or online reviewers. There’s a monthly column in our town’s newspaper, for instance, that features regional authors and their new releases. Since much of the action in the book takes place in a touristy gold mining town in northwestern Arizona, a town that sits on old historic Route 66, I need to step out of the box and look for unusual review opportunities there.

Getting published is a wait…hurry up…wait…hurry up roller coaster ride. I now move into hurry up mode until the proofing is complete and the reading copies in the mail.

The book information is now on amazon.com and bn.com but the cover art is not. I can submit the bookcover myself to those sites to speed up the process, so that goes on my ToDo list as well.

Here are the first few lines of the book flap synopsis for The Desert Hedge Murders:

“A body in the bathtub is the last thing Sylvia Thorn expects her mother’s travel club to find when they check into their Laughlin, Nevada hotel rooms.

The Florida Flippers, named for their long-standing support of the Miami Dolphins, scatter like dandelion fluff, intent on investigating a murder case to which they have no apparent connection. From the elderly wannabe cowgirl with wild red hair to the caustic-tongued volunteer park ranger in orthopedic hiking boots, the Florida Flippers keep Sylvia on her toes as she does a little sleuthing on her own.”

I’ll keep you posted on the review process, bad or good.

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Comments

  4. Thanks for the glimpse into the traditional publishing/reviewing process. The blurb copy makes your mystery sound intriguing,and I’ll definitely check out Five Star’s submission guidelines.

  5. Best of luck with this! Isn’t publishing an interminable process? I hope the evolution of P.O.D. things will speed up a little. Let’s hope!

  6. First, thanks so much for dropping by my blog. Very gracious of you. Again, thanks.

    ARC arrivals are indeed exciting…doesn’t matter how many times it’s happened previously, it’s still quite an occasion.

    I had to smile at the, gotta read it again comment you made. Yes, while not exactly painful, it’s like, “How many times exactly, am I gonna have to read this book cover to cover??” Sheesh. Still, the entire experience is fun.

    Again, thanks, Patricia.

    Beat regards, Galen

  8. Jina, thanks for asking about Sylvia’s love life.

    Sylvia, age 60, kind of sort of has a romantic interest. There’s a younger man, an FBI agent, and Sylvia can’t figure out whether his only aim is to woo her back to the FBI for an active assignment, or whether he has something more interesting in mind. She’s put off by the age difference, but we don’t yet know exactly how old Agent Damon Falls is. If I write the third Sylvia and Willie mystery, we’ll find out the rest of the story (which I don’t yet know).

  11. Thanks for the kind words, Karen. The Sylvia and Willie mysteries are traditionally published by medium-sized publisher Five Star (linked above). Five Star primarily markets mysteries and romance/women’s fiction to libraries, but is available through online booksellers and can be ordered through most independent and chain bookstores. If anyone has additional questions about this publisher, let me know. Or follow the link in the blog and scan down the Five Star page. There you’ll find a link to submission guidelines.