Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent: some kind words from Savvy Verse & Wit

My friend Serena Agusto-Cox was an early reader of Dangerous Neighbors, my Centennial Philadelphia novel. She wondered, when she finished reading, about that character William, who plays a secondary role in Neighbors, and when I had in hand finished copies of Dr. Radway—a book in which William stars—I sent one her way.

She writes thoughtfully and kindly here about the story, and on this day, when I'm thinking so much about my city, I am particularly grateful.

Thank you, Serena. A small part of her review is here, below. The whole can be found here.

Kephart brings home the pressure of change and darkness with the thrumming of the machines, the locomotive commotion, and the constant mechanization of the city pounding in the background.  While the industrialization signifies a change and progress that can be beneficial and create opportunity, there also is the darker underbelly of those changes that must be dealt with — the corruption and the abuse of those willing to take advantage of their position and of others.  There is a keen juxtaposition of this in the characters of Officer Kernon and the Ledger’s editor Mr. Childs — one who abuses his position to get what he wants and the other who offers his aid in the form of mentoring and money to young men in need of guidance.

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bringing Quinn onto the Dr. Radway team

How do we ever get to be, in this life, to be the thing we want to be?

Sometimes somebody just has to give us a chance.

For as long as I have known Quinn Colter (we met shortly after I started this blog, when she was still in high school), she has wanted to be a copy editor.  Words—the right words, rightly spaced and punctuated—matter to her.  She studies them and celebrates them.  Their mismanagement irks her. She sees herself in New York City someday, but between now and then—how? what?

Readers of this blog know how important copy editors are to me.  Quinn knows how important she has become in my life.  Not long ago I made the decision to invite Quinn onto the Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent team, and so I am so happy today to announce that she will be my copy editor on this important project.

Dr. Radway is due out next March from New City Community Press/Temple University Press.

Welcome to 1871 Philadelphia, Quinn.

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Too Much Teen Paranormal Romance

Well, here I am, fighting for every blooming second alone to write my Dangerous Neighbors (Egmont USA) prequel—a book featuring brothers and two boy best friends, a murder and its avenging, a stint in a terrible prison, the rescue of animals—and here this wise and lovely soul sits, in a room somewhere, talking about why we don't have more teen boy readers, and why we need them, and what we (as a society and publishing community) can do about it.

I have three corporate projects I have to finish today so that I can turn (secretly, feverishly) to the 20,000th word of my work in progress.

I'm letting this young woman speak for me.

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"Historical fiction is struggling,"

I was told in an ever-so-brief e-mail yesterday.  Strangely, the note didn't do a thing to discourage me from the work I am doing to tell William's story in a Dangerous Neighbors prequel.  Most importantly, perhaps, because I just love this book—the guy-oriented nature of it, the pretty fascinating history behind it, and the way it visits me, late at night (my characters inside my dreams, my dreams beginning alongside a mess of noisy railroad tracks, in the clamor of a newsroom, in the rescue of a red heifer).  But also because when I look around I see books I've loved—historical novels for young adults—that are absolutely thriving.

Let's consider Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs), a Quirk publication, now in its seventh week on the New York Times bestseller list (I'm 70 pages in and loving the mix of image and story; expect a full report tomorrow).  Let's talk about Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray, a book that led me to the marvelous Tamra Tuller of Philomel, and which, in its very first week, debuted on the New York Times list.  Let's talk about The Book Thief, one of my favorite books of all time, still number one on the list, or, for that matter, the award-winning, bestselling The Good Thief, still generating much enthusiasm.  Libba Bray didn't do too badly with The Sweet Far Thing or A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rita Williams-Garcia was deservedly rewarded for her basically perfect One Crazy Summer, and I recall—do you as well?—a certain series of historical novels featuring glamorously clad society heroines that rocked the lists for a very long time.  (I'm also thinking of the big recent award winners like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and about the up and coming May B. by Caroline Starr Rose.)

Then there are those adult books, historical novels all, with which we are so familiar—Devil in the White City, The Help, Water for Elephants, The Paris Wife, Loving Frank, so many others—that locked in their places in book clubs and on lists. Struggle isn't a word that I would apply to them. 

I believe, in other words, that there is room for those of us out here who have fallen in love with a time and place and have a story to tell.  I've been barely able to breathe under a load of corporate work lately.  But the first chance I get, I'm returning to William.  I left him in a saloon down on Broad Street by name of Norris House.  He's been hankering for some dinner. I've got ideas about a multi-media launch.  And this kind of fun is worth having.

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