The main character for this one is a thirty year old woman and much of the plot takes place in England, which is where I lived in my late teens/early twenties. I’m looking forward to polishing this one up. As hard as I work on a manuscript before I submit it, there are always a hundred things I think of to do after it’s out. We’ll see how many changes the publisher agrees with.

I suggest going to Seagull Book and also buying from Seagull Book’s website - their discount means that the amount you pay, with shipping, will be roughly the same as if you bought full price from any other bookstore. Also, if you are unable to get a copy of the book but would like an autograph, please come to one of my signings, posted in the calendar section. I can at least sign a bookplate for you, which you can then affix in the book once the local bookstores restock their copies.

Thanks everyone who’s been buying the book and supporting my career. I sincerely appreciate it.

The book is out in the Utah stores. I’m still waiting on my copies.

Anyway, in the next month I will be offering autographed bookplates through the site. These will be free, of course, and will enable people who can’t make it to one of my talks to have their book autographed. If anyone is desperate for one now, I can make them on my home printer (just email me), but these I’m getting designed and printed at a professional printer’s.

For info on when they’ll be available, register for updates to the site. These updates are newsletters I compose, so you won’t get notice every time I post an inconsequential news item (like this one) or change punctuation or anything like that. Just when books or bookplates or that sort of thing come out.

This book is still tentatively titled Living Water. I really don’t think much of my ability to title books, though. I was kind of mortified when my publisher kept the title for Time and Eternity, but they designed a cover that made it work.

While my first book has a lot of lightheartedness in its tone, this book is dark. That was my challenge that I set for myself, to write a dark theme in an uplifting way that would be appropriate for the LDS market. Already, the feedback I’m getting is interesting. I’ve had some of the same proofreaders for this that I had for my first book, and each time I’ve made half of them cry. This time, though, the halves are reversed. The people who could read my first book dry eyed are crying, and the people who cried at the end of T&E aren’t.

Which, of course, means to my paranoid mind that I’ve completely screwed up and everyone who likes my first book will hate the second and my career will be over before it’s even begun. Not that I’m emotional right now or anything. If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to curl up in fetal position for a couple of days until I wear myself out enough to stop worrying.

 Unlike my first LDS novel, this one was workshopped by my writer’s group, Critical Mass. Talk about charity. All of the members of Critical Mass write science fiction and fantasy (as do I, under the name Emily Mah) and none of them are members of the Church. I won’t go so far as to say I got the book to the point where they liked it, but in the end they gave me a lot of kind praise about my writing and seemed to think the book was ready for the national market. I’m not sure how many people in the national market want to read LDS chick lit, but all the same, it was nice of my group mates to say so.

 I should also point out that when I call the book close to “done”, it’ll need several edits and revisions before it goes to press. I’m nearing the end of the edits I can do on my own. Covenant, should they buy it, will then send me through at least two more rounds of substantive edits and then copyedits. The process will take months, and the book won’t see print until next calendar year at the earliest.

 Oh wait, I just noticed the date on this post. It’s the 7th anniversary of my baptism. Neat.