I waited anxiously for the trade paperback of Solitaire to come out – I just finished reading it yesterday.
I work in the corporate world, for a company that has been doing a goodly amount of layoffs. I so love that Jackal’s struggle with the ideas of personal identity vs. corporate identity are as much a part of this story as mystery and plot.
The resolution she finds at the story’s end was deliciously layered. Hopeful. It made me cry on public transit. So, so, good.
Please write more novels. Please. Please. 🙂
— naomi
Wow, public transit tears! I do the happy dance. Nicola and I both have a fantasy of seeing a stranger in a public place reading one of our books, and the notion of seeing someone crying over one just makes me want to give you a big hug. Thank you for such a gift.
Layoffs are hard, hard. The company I last worked for did its first major layoff less than three months after I was hired, and it was an unhappy, ill-planned process that taught me a great deal about things not to do in a similar situation. I hope your company is handling it better. There’s never a way to make these things good news, but there are ways to deliver bad news that leave people with some measure of dignity and hope.
You may have read in an earlier pint that I’m actually cooking two novels at the moment, although not with equal focus. The Kansas book is in active preparation, and the mountain book is simmering. I woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so ended up in my office at 4:15 AM with a cup of tea and a cat sleeping over the heater, pondering the psychology of guilt (me, not the cat) and writing scenes of hamburgers in a diner and a serious two-in-the-morning argument (ditto). Got a lot of work done, and oh, the mixed feelings about that….if my peak writing time turns out to be 4:15 AM, I will be really pissed. And as for what Nicola would make of it, well, I won’t even go there… instead I will go join her for a beer and some lovely Indian takeaway. I hope your day will include some equally nice treat.