IN ABSENTIA

Like Ebenezer Scrooge time-traveling back to the jolly Fezziwigs' ball, but unable to join in. Like Stella Dallas watching tearfully from outside the church window on her daughter's wedding day.

 Like Woody Allen in Stardust Memories, trapped on a train full of gloomy characters out of a Munch painting as a party train full of laughing, drinking revelers passes by on the next track.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel today. My novel, Alias Hook, is about to launch in the UK (official pub date is May 1, just hours away), but I'm over here on the other side of the Pond—far on the other side, since I'm in California—watching it all from a distance.

The books are even now being shipped from various UK-based online bookselling portals. The AH ranking on The Book Depository site has soared from mid-six figures about a week ago to high five figures.

(And my hearty, not to say groveling thanks to each and every one of you who actually pre-ordered a copy; you folks are the best!) But my basking must be done in absentia.

Of course, this is sort of typical of my personal adventures in publishing. The very first edition of my first published novel—which became The Witch From the Sea—was published in German, a language I do not read, let alone write, under the title Die heimliche Piratin. (And, no, it doesn't mean The Pirates Who Save People From Choking; literal translation, more or less, is The Secret Female Pirate.)

It was such a gorgeous production, in hardcover, with original cover art and a sewn-in red silk bookmark (!), it didn't even bother me (so much) that I had no clue what was going on between the covers, translation-wise. My first published book, I thought, and I didn't even write it!

At least when Alias Hook arrives, I'll be able to read it! And so will you. And I will be happy to take full blame for whatever shortcomings and outrages are discovered inside, because this time I wrote every word.

In the meantime, if you and/or yours are in the continental UK as we speak, or planning to visit any time in the next few months, feel free to check out Alias Hook at fine booksellers everywhere. Not literally, unless you happen see it in a library; I mean take a gander at it sitting on the shelf in all its glory.

Send me a photo of it in situ, and I'll think of something really nice to do for you in return!

Die heimliche Piratin, snapped by a globe-trotting friend in all its gorgeousness, on a bookshop shelf in Austria.