I’ve been waiting forever to give this update:
I’ve finished another book!
That’s right, Novel No. 2 is a wrap. It still has to go through editing, which is slated to happen this month, but the writing of the manuscript is done.
Actually, it was done around mid-April, but I still haven’t emotionally processed it. Story of my life, it seems.
So, without further ado…
Introducing: The Mysteriarch of Magnolia.
Detective Ernest Cubbedge is called in to find a missing girl. The catch? The old southern patriarch who says she is missing from his house has lived alone for the past five years, and the men of the village have only called the detective as a courtesy to shut him up. But Cubbedge senses that though the old man may be mistaken, he isn’t senile, and commences a search for the girl. This leads him straight into a tangled web of secrets, heartbreaks, lies, and old jealousies tying together the two oldest and most respected families in town. And the more he digs, the more serious offenses he starts to dig up. It isn’t long before the town is fed up with his interference, but he doggedly pursues his case, hoping to help the one innocent person who he hopes is not beyond his reach.
And trust me, that’s only the beginning.
Now that you have the teaser, here are the deets:
It’s historical detective fiction, set in Georgia in 1890. This is about thirty years post-Civil War, when people were moving from rural plantations to factory work. I would describe it as a Southern Gothic: behind the frills and sweet tea and high manners lie secrets that would make one’s neighbors clutch their pearls. I’ve had it in my head to write a Southern Gothic for a long time, but starting in September of 2020 (yes, even before my first novel had officially launched) several ideas came together and blossomed into this new tale.
This one took me a lot longer than the last one, but to be fair, it’s about one and a half times its length – 139,000 words compared to about 91,000.
19 months, two or three periods of severe writers’ block (lasting a month or more each), 39 chapters, and two dogged fans who read it as it arrived, two or three chapters at a time. I’m exhausted and proud and emotional, torn between great confidence in the story I love and immense insecurity in its execution as I count the days until Constance reads and edits it.
There really isn’t much else to say except that I’m starting the publishing process again. Only this time, I sort of know what I’m doing. I’ll have to trot out my old list of steps, but I’m confident I have a rough map of where to go next.
I can’t wait for you all to read it!
