Thank you, Elizabeth, for allowing me to participate again in your blog. Last December, I wrote about revisiting my first book, Cold Call, (the first Iris Thorne mystery) and the debut author I was in 1993. This post focuses on my second book (and the second in the series), Slow Squeeze, published in 1994.
I’ve gently edited and am republishing the five Iris Thorne mysteries as e-books and trade paperbacks. The third, Fast Friends, will be re-released soon. Books four and five—Foolproof and Pushover—will be out later this year.
When I landed a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster for Cold Call and a second, unnamed, Iris Thorne mystery, my elation soon turned to terror. Writing Cold Call was a hobby, a lark. I took all the time I wanted to polish it in blissful privacy. Now, I reported to an editor and had a deadline for the second book, all while holding down a full-time day job. Like my mother is fond of saying, don’t wish too hard for what you want because you might get it.
The title of this post is only somewhat tongue-in-cheek. When I exceeded my wildest dreams by landing that book contract, my early morning writing hobby suddenly became public. The warning about the sophomore jinx was delivered by a childhood friend, also an avid scribbler, who was perhaps a wee bit jealous. I asked him, “What do you mean?” I honestly had never heard that phrase before. Oh, to be young and naïve. I was soon to have the scales yanked from my eyes.